Dancing With the Virgins (53 page)

‘
I'm afraid those particular dogs were trained to kill,' said Tailby. 'We seized six pit bull terriers from various
addresses when we made our arrests. Now they will have to be destroyed anyway.'

‘
So it was the fall that killed her.' Maggie took a deep
breath. 'Will the CPS carry forward a prosecution on a
murder charge? Or will the men plead guilty to man
slaughter? I'm sorry, that's a lawyer speaking again.'

‘
Unfortunately,' said Tailby slowly,
'we
believe the fall didn't kill her outright. Your daughter didn't die
straight away. The pathologist thinks she was still alive
for a while as she lay on that ledge. She had dragged
herself a foot or two. The debris under her fingernails
included gritstone sand from where she had been lying.’

Maggie's face went white, and the confidence in her eyes died. 'She was still alive, then. And I left her.
’

‘
You weren't to know that,' said Cooper.

‘I left her there to die.’

The DCI looked at Cooper sharply. But Cooper felt
he understood Maggie at last. He knew there was noth
ing to stop you being consumed by guilt when you failed to protect someone who relied on you.

‘
There was nothing you could have done,' he said.
'I abandoned her again,' said Maggie. 'And this time
she'll never come back, will she?’

*

They allowed Maggie a rest period. They had plenty of
time to keep her in custody before she had to appear in court. More evidence was needed yet, before they
could decide how many murder charges she would face.
'Why did you associate yourself with the animal rights group?' Tailby asked her later.

‘
I wanted to find out where Ros had gone, why she
hadn't got in touch. I couldn't remember clearly
enough, and I thought the details had become distorted,
as they do in a nightmare. Most of all, I couldn't believe
that she was dead. I thought she had dropped me
because I was no use to her any more. And with Jenny Weston dead, those other women were the only connec
tion to Ros I had left. I'm afraid I pestered them until
they let me join in their activities.'

‘How did they react to you?'

‘
They felt sorry for me, I think. That made me angry.
But I needed them — I needed the information I thought
they had about Ros. On the other hand, some of them
had heard that I was attacked near Ringham Edge Farm.
They wondered whether I had been attacked by the dog-fighters. None of them ever dared to ask me outright, but I think it was that which earned me acceptance.'

‘
But they didn't know what had happened to Ros?'

‘
No. And if they knew what Ros had planned to do, they wouldn't have told anybody about it. They have
their own loyalty, you see.'

‘
Perhaps they just thought she had moved on again
somewhere else, to undertake some other mission. She
seems to have seen herself as some kind of animal rights
commando,' said Cooper.

‘
But they heard about the latest body, and they knew
perfectly well who it was. It seems I was the only one
in ignorance. I had gone along to the cattle market still
hoping. I was so blind — but only because I didn't want
to give up hoping.'

‘
Hoping that Ros would turn up?'

‘I thought she might have appeared at the cattle
market — it was her sort of thing, direct action. The plan
was to slash the tyres on the vehicles of the people that had been targeted. That's why we were all given knives.
They almost didn't let me have one, you know. It was
a kind of sign of acceptance. Ros would have been pleased to see me there.'

‘
Even though you were actually committing a crime
yourself this time, Maggie.’

She nodded. 'You see which instinct won? Besides, it
was already too late for anything else by then. Too late
for the old Maggie Crew. You can't go backwards. You
can't get parts of your life back, once they're dead.’

*

Keith Teasdale and five others had been arrested,
despite the distractions at the cattle market. They were
all believed to have been involved in the dog-fighting
ring at Ringham Edge Farm. Under questioning, Teas-
dale told the story of the night Ros Daniels had staged
her single-handed fire-bomb attack and the chaos that
had followed as men and dogs spilled out on to the hill in a mad chase lit by flames from the burning pick-up.

Teasdale had admitted that he and Warren Leach had
made a search of the area near the Hammond Tower at first light next morning and had found the body of
the young woman on a ledge under the most northerly
of the Cat Stones. They had moved it deeper into the
cavity to conceal it, he said. At the same time, Yvonne Leach had stumbled across Maggie Crew, injured and
incoherent from the hours she had spent on the moor.
Ben Cooper wondered if Yvonne had guessed what had
happened that night.

After that, Warren Leach had lived for the best part
of two months with the fear and expectation that an
injured woman's memories would return. He had tried
to live a life under those circumstances, seeing every
visitor as an enemy, recognizing the potential for
betrayal even in his own wife. Perhaps especially in his
own wife. Cooper knew that no one could live with
that kind of uncertainty. No wonder Leach could see
no point in carrying on.

Maggie Crew had been a serious threat to Leach, that
was obvious. Yet there had been someone who had seen Jenny Weston as the main target. Had that been Leach?
Or had that been Maggie herself?

‘
Teasdale will be charged with manslaughter and a
few other things,' said DCI Tailby. 'They all admit the
assault on Calvin Lawrence and Simon Bevington at the
quarry. They made a good job of drawing our attention
there. And, of course, there's the dog-fighting pit.'

‘There must be more,' said Chief Superintendent Jepson.

‘
We're quite sure there are others involved. But these
people have their own sense of loyalty, too. They won't
implicate anyone else.'

‘I don't mean more people. I mean Jenny Weston.
Please tell me we can connect
somebody
to Jenny Weston,
after all this . .

But Tailby shook his head.

*

'Yes, I lay in wait for Jenny that day,' Maggie had said. 'I
waited at the tower, because she always came that way. I had
met her before, two days earlier, and we had argued. I was angry with her – I didn't believe her when she said she had
no idea where Ros had gone. She was
my
main hope, because
I suspected then that there was more to their relationship.
But of course I did it all wrong. I antagonized her.'

‘We don't believe there was any relationship between them,
other than a loose connection through the animal rights
group. No sexual relationship. Jenny Weston and your
daughter were not lovers.'

‘
That's what Jenny told me, too. As far as she was con
cerned, Ros was just a silly, hot-headed girl who had passed through her life and was soon forgotten.'

‘
But you didn't believe her.’

And Maggie hesitated. 'Actually, I suppose I did.'

‘So why did you attack her? Why did you use the knife?'

‘
Did I do that? But yesterday, it felt as though I'd never
held a knife in my life before. No, I don't believe I saw Jenny
Weston. Either she never came to the tower, or I was too late.
I didn't see her. Not that day.'

‘
You expect us to believe that?'

‘You'll have to,' she said. 'I think it's true.’

*

Chief Superintendent Jepson scowled angrily at his officers, his blue eyes glittering.

‘Yes, I'm afraid it
is
true,' said DCI Tailby.

‘
Are we
sure?'

‘
The shoe print over the bloodstain is much too big to be Maggie Crew's. Or Simon Bevington's either, for
that matter.'

‘
Damn.'

‘
Also, some strength was needed to drag the victim
into the stone circle,' said DI Hitchens. 'We doubt that
either of them would be capable of it, or would even attempt it. Besides, there's the missing camera.’

Jepson frowned. 'The camera?'

‘
Well, Jenny Weston had reported the dog-fights to
the RSPCA,' said Hitchens. 'We believe she'd taken
some photographs, too. She carried an auto-focus camera
with her when she was on the moor. Most likely, it was
in her pouch.'

‘
Which was missing when the body was found.
’

‘
Yes.'

‘
Suggesting that whoever killed her knew what was
likely to be on the film. So it has to have been one of
the dog-fighters.'

‘
Teasdale has told us that she took photographs of
him and Warren Leach burying a pitbull terrier that
had to be put down because of its injuries. They had
taken it well away from the farm — close to the stone
circle, in fact, in the trees there. But Jenny saw them.
Teasdale says they stood no chance of catching her,
because she was on a bike. But she knew they'd seen
her.'

‘And Leach was in a good position to spot Jenny when she came back to the moor again.'

‘
That's pretty much what we think. And we founda whole range of knives and other implements in his workshop. Not
the
knife, though.’

Jepson considered the evidence. 'So Warren Leach's
associates plan on him taking the blame for Jenny Weston's murder. How convenient for them.'

‘And clever. They've all got their story straight.'

‘
Well, let's face it,' said Hitchens. 'It's convenient all
round.’

They all looked at Ben Cooper. But Cooper sat very
still, his lips pressed together, saying nothing. Now was the time for saying nothing, if ever it had been the time.
They were expecting a comment from him that would
never come.

Soon, there would be another police funeral for him
to attend, when Todd Weenink was buried with all the
honours befitting an officer who had died in the course
of duty. But for now there was nothing to be said. Noth
ing that Cooper could possibly hope to put into words.

*

Next day, there was a new notice pinned to the
board in the corridor. Officers were gathered round
to read it.

‘
Mr Tailby's being posted to Ripley,' one said. 'And the new DCI's been named.'

‘
Oh? Is it DI Hitchens?' Ben Cooper elbowed his way
closer to the noticeboard. He was aware of an odd mood
among the officers around him. A dark, cynical mood.

‘
No, mate,' said someone. 'We're getting a new Detec
tive Superintendent from South Yorkshire, and a DCI
is transferring from B Division. More foreigners on our
patch.’

Cooper read through the praise of Tailby and some
indecipherable details of his new headquarters role,
then skimmed through the new appointments before
reaching the final pay-off line: 'Detective Inspector K.
Armstrong has been appointed Detective Chief Inspec
tor, B Division, to succeed DCI Maddison.'

‘
Armstrong's done well for herself,' said someone.
'Right.'

‘
Her paedophile operation got a good press. Lots of
arrests.'

‘Well, what can you say?’

They looked over their shoulders, watchful for
unfriendly ears, afraid of uttering a politically incorrect
word.

‘
It's good news for some,' said Cooper.

‘Yes, if you're one of the sisters.'

‘
Who do you mean?' It was DC Gardner, trying to
force herself into the group. 'Acting DS Fry is it? Her
and Armstrong? There's more to it than that, from what
I've heard. Sisters is right.'

‘
You listen to the sound of your own voice too
much, then,' said Cooper. Then he turned and saw
Diane Fry herself, standing at the corner of the corridor.
He wasn't sure how much she had heard. She was pale
and drawn. The wound on her cheekbone was red and
angry, the stitches stretching the flesh tight below her
eye.

Before anyone else noticed her, she had slipped away,
disappearing back into the shadows as if she hadn't been there at all.